Table of Contents

Chapter

Page

1. 1 Introduction . 1

1.1 Background 1

1.1.1 Tourism industry in Vietnam . 1

1.1.2 Internet in Vietnam . 1

1.1.3 Level of participating in E-commerce of tourism companies . 1

1.1.4 Hanoi . 1

1.2 Problem statement 2

1.3 Objectives of study 2

1.4 Scope of study 2

1.5 Methodology . 2

1.5.1 Survey methodology . 2

1.5.2 Web development tools/languages 3

1.6 Limitations of the research 3

1.7 Organization of the research 3

2. 2 Literature Review 5

2.1 Internet history . 5

2.2 Commerce . 10

2.3 Internet E-commerce overview . 12

2.4 Benefits of Internet for E-commerce . 13

2.5 Trading environment . 14

2.6 Applications of E-commerce 18

2.7 Levels of internet exploitation . 18

2.8 Towards E-payments . 19

2.8.1 Conventional Payment Mechanisms . 19

2.8.2 Electronic Payment Mechanisms . 20

2.9 Internet in Vietnam 21

2.10 Hanoi 21

2.10.1 Geographical . 30

2.10.2 Tourist Potential . 31

2.10.3 Hanoi – Point of Departure to neighboring regions . 32

2.10.4 The development of Hanoi tourism industry in recent years 35

2.11 Overview of Languages and Tools used for the application 21

2.11.1 Hyper text markup language (html) . 21

2.11.2 Active server pages (asp) . 22

2.11.3 Javascript . 22

2.11.4 Microsoft access 23

2.11.5 Dreamweaver 4.0 23

2.11.6 Dreamweaver UltraDev . 24

2.11.7 Photoshop 24

2.11.8 Fireworks 24

3. 3 Needed features of a web-site for tourists and permanent investors (Survey findings) 25

3.1 Survey Methodology . 37

3.2 Survey Results (tourists and long-term investors) . 37

3.3 Survey Results (officials in tourism industry in Hanoi) 39

3.3.1 Infrastructure preparation 40

3.3.2 Web site promotion . 40

3.3.3 The method of payment through network trading 40

4. 4 Web development 44

4.1 Rationale 44

4.1.1 Service and normal features of a website 44

4.1.2 Hotel Booking 45

4.2 Web design . 45

5. 5 Conclusion and recommendations 47

5.1 The role of E-commerce for Hanoi tourism industry . 47

5.2 Level of participating in E-commerce of tourism companies in Hanoi 47

5.3 Recommendations 47

5.4 Direction for further research 4